Governments that have removed Confederate monuments from public land understand that there’s no disguising what they represent. They pay tribute to the side of the Civil War that fought to keep human beings in bondage. And they honor a war against the sacred ideals of this country that each of us are created equal.

That’s why we’re disappointed in the Texas Senate for passing a bill from Conroe Republican Sen. Brandon Creighton that would make it more difficult for cities to remove or alter these vestiges. If the bill becomes law, removing them would require a supermajority of votes.

Under the misguided notion that preserving vestiges of this painful history is more important than moving cities forward to a more positive future, lawmakers who would support this measure would open the door to prolonged divisiveness.

Our representatives should be in the business of helping to heal wounds that continue to harm us, not picking at their scabs.

It’s worrisome that Senate Bill 1663 has gotten as far as it has. Senators passed this measure after emotional debate and an amendment from Amarillo Republican Sen. Kel Seliger requiring the supermajority. As originally written, the bill would have stripped local officials’ power to change or remove historical monuments in place longer than 25 years.

That would have affected the city of Dallas’ important decisions to remove the Robert E. Lee statue from a park in Oak Lawn and the Civil War Memorial in front of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention for thousands of tourists to see.

Years of debate went into those decisions before Dallas leaders decided that — to cast a better legacy for our city — these statues had to go. This newspaper agreed, just as we supported Dallas ISD’s decision to rename schools that had honored Confederate leaders.

The same smart thinking went into the University of Austin’s decision to take down a statue of Lee and to two other Confederate leaders. And it’s why we applauded when a Confederate plaque finally came down at the Texas Capitol recently.

Many of these memorials were erected during the civil rights era or a time of Jim Crow with clear intentions for divisiveness, not more than a century ago for history’s sake.

It was painful to hear Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, read from the 1861 Declaration of Causes, in which Texas officials laid out their reasons for seceding from the Union.

“That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights: that the servitude of the African race ... is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind.”

Texas is now better than that. Here’s hoping Creighton’s bill is dead on arrival in the House, never to be heard again.

This editorial was written by the editorial board and serves as the voice and opinion of The Dallas Morning News.